One concern I have with integrating all of these services is that power failures will be more than just an annoyance. Right now, the telephone central offices have giant batteries that keep landline phone service running even during a power outage. If we start running everything thru optical fibers (or cable tv for that matter), I'm concerned that a power outage will mean that we're totally cut off from emergency services. Maybe not even a power outage: if these services are as unreliable as my cable tv, that ain't so good. Not being able to dial 911 when your neighbors are looting your house, or your garage is on fire might be more than a tad inconvenient...
Obviously Streambox realized they didn't have a leg to stand on and decided to settle rather than fight.
Not necessarily. Just contemplating the expenses of ongoing litigation may have been enough. They could have been pefectly in their rights, but the prospect of spending hundreds of thousands to prove it, with perhaps not all that much profit to be gained at the end of it all wouldn't be much of an incentive to continue.
I think that in the present litigious environment the only way we're going to get some of these handy items (like a 'VCR' for realaudio and windows streaming media. I tried out a cracked version of Streambox VCR and it's really great) is to quietly develop them out of public view and then release them into the world. Sort of the way Gnutella happened, except that the source would be released as well. Anyone know of an effort to develop a Streambox VCR-like tool?
I think it's become acceptable use to say 'I'm color-blind' instead of 'I have a red-green color defect'. The common usage has shifted to this interpretation. Besides, if I used the latter I'd feel like a pretentious ass and I'm not sure my audience would always know what I'm talking about. People who don't suffer from color-blindiness don't necessarily know that it's (usually) a problem with red and green.
Well, why don't you just suggest that they demand that site visitors must have a particular brand of monitor and video card before being allowed to enter? They can even require that potential visitors mail them receipts showing that they own the necessay items before receiving a password. That way they can pre-qualify the entire user base. Problem solved:-).
Oooh! I just had another thought. They can furnish each potential visitor with a pantone card set and gamma correction software, and insist that they adjust their monitors until they get just the right shading. Yeah, that'll work.
Do you realize that the description you've just given also applies to Hoover Dam? The only distinction is how rapidly the material gets (re)distributed.
Another distinction is the area affected. A dam burst, even one of Hoover's size, would be confined to a relatively small area. A falling beanstalk could potentially hit the entire equatorial region, encompassing hundreds of thousands of square miles and many political jurisdictions.
It seems to be getting harder and harder to erect the large-scale engineering projects, either because of their perceived danger or just the NIMBY syndrome. New dams are fought tooth-and-nail, and you'd probably have more success building a nerve-gas plant than a reactor for nuclear power. A beanstalk would bring together all of these oposition forces.
I've had problems like this before, but usually the client understands when I explain the web isn't like a brochure, where you can mix the inks to get exactly the shade that you want, and have complete control over the layout. It seems to help if you use their own monitor and change the color and resolution settings to show them how there are many variables that the user can mess with, and over which you have no control.
Besides the web-safety limitations of color selections, web designers should also be cognizant of what visitors who are color-blind will see (a subject near and dear to my heart). Webtechniques has a great article on this subject. Particularly interesting is their description of how to simulate color-blindness in order to view your own design efforts.
In a world that loses its collective mind every time a hundred pounds of satellite debris comes down, do you really think anyone is going to be allowed to build a structure that could drop thousands of tons of material across a large swath of the planet if it failed (or the installation went badly)? One doesn't even have to be one of the neo-Luddites to see that maybe this isn't such a great idea, however cool it might sound. By the way, this idea is also known as a "beanstalk" (for obvious reasons), and Analog Science Fiction had a fascinating article some years back on how one might build and install one of these things.
As time goes on, we hear more and more about security flaws in these new wireless personal devices. I think I'm going to devote some serious thought to whether I want to festoon myself with a bunch of linked equipment that contains my personal information, or on which I rely for things like communication, scheduling, directions, etc. I have this nightmare vision where someone manages to hack my body network and all my hardware starts conspiring against me. The modern-day equivalent of that old twilight zone episode where the guy is murdered by his own household devices.
if you are essentially operating as a company, do you
have to be paid minimum wage if you choose not too?
The answer is no. As an independent who frequently works on fixed-price contracts, I've many times been compensated below minimum (mainly when I've been trying to get a foot in the door with a new client). The trick is, the IRS has some strict tests that you have to pass in order to be considered an independent contractor, and they go out of their way to find that you're actually a quasi-employee. They get lots of back taxes and penalties against your 'employer' that way. Consequently, many employers are gun-shy about trying to have some be an independent contractor.
I mean if you do a bunch of work and get a bunch of free hardware out of it, is that income (or
more to the point, taxable income)?
Are you kidding? The IRS isn't going to let that slip by. Of course, if the company doesn't turn in a 1099 there's no way for the IRS to know. But, you'll run right out and report it, right?:-)
It may not be that big a deal if the online organizations stop giving out freebies to their volunteers. In my experience, these people do it for either love of the subject area or because they can be fascist demi-gods in their own little patch of the universe. Many people who get elected to public office take a large hit to their income for the privilege of serving. I suspect that the same motivations that snag them will also continue to supply volunteers. (Now, the big question becomes: is that enough to placate the bureaucrats? Stay tuned.)
I can see the lawsuits now, with Plaintiffs A, B, and C each separately saying their driver is superior, and asking a court to rule on the quality of computer software. Face it, in the U.S., nothing insulates you from being sued. Oh, you may 'prevail' in the end, but probably at a cost of far more than that of just settling. Tort reform is sorely needed.
One more note: this is a class action suit brought for the volenteers. I smell a team of lawyers in bad suits looking to score easy
money.
Maybe, or maybe not. It just may be a bunch of ex-AOLers who've suffered some perceived wrong by the company and are looking for a little payback. Unfortunately, the U.S. legal system lends itself to vengeance. The Brits have the right idea (one of their few) in having a 'loser pays' system.
Consider packaging the video of a particular event into a single file and making it available on usenet (larger files have to be broken up across multiple messages, of course). The distribution and mirroring will be taken care of for you, and there already exist a number of anonymizing methods.
I'm a CA resident and when the time comes to sell my rather substantial portfolio, I'll be doing it as a Nevada resident. Nothing like not having to pay 9% to the lefties who run the show in Sacramento to make living in the desert palatable. That plus the 'must-issue' concealed-carry gun law there.
How come, when it's time to be 'fair', we never seem to hear the argument that we ought to cut taxes so those who pay 'unfairly', reduce their taxes to the level of those who are paying less than 'their fair share'? Why are tax adjustments only one-way?
Naturally, this is a rhetorical question. Just like when people talk about 'equal pay for equal work' it's never to lower the wages of the higher-paying job to that of the lower. Anyone living in the Tax Hell of California as I do knows just what a crock this whole argument is. Our income tax rate is 9% on the last dollar. Our sales tax gets as high as 8%,depending on the county. We pay property tax, plus the state has enacted fines as great as $271 for traffic violations. Not to mention that CA has attempted in the past to tax even out-of-state residents on portions of their pension income if any of the vesting happened while the person was a CA resident. If a football player plays two games out of 12 in the state, CA wants income tax on 2/12 of their income for that year. This state is so money-hungry it will stop at literally nothing to upend people and shake the last cent out of their pockets. This while running a multibillion dollar budget surplus that it just can't wait to spend. The state budget just passed is up 38%(1) over last year's. Every time some CA politician bitches about how they need more tax revenue I just want to puke.
My suggestion is to start posting the DeCSS sources and binaries to various newsgroups over and over. Probably best to use an anonymizing service to avoid legal entanglements. I don't think even the MPAA can get a link to a generic newsgroup banned. I.E., "We hear that someone is posting DeCSS to alt.source-code, but check for yourself. Even if they could, someone could just post the newsgroup name itself.
Ah, another carefully reasoned and measured response by an informed slashdot reader. Must be a product of the California school system. Any legal action must be initiated by a plaintiff. In this case, it could be the state Attorney General, or an individual consumer or consumers on behalf of the entire class. Either way, there are named plaintiffs attached to the suit, not "Everyone Who Ever Bought Microsoft Products" vs Microsoft. Thus endeth the lesson, not that you'll likely derive any benefit, as evidenced by your not having learned anything so far in your ignorant existence. Have a lice day.
If Iridium is ultimately rescued, take a close look at the company that does it. I know that U.S. government employees are a large portion of the users, and I would not put it out of the realm of possibility for some secretive governmental agency to keep the thing afloat via a front company.
That is a United States top-level domain suffix, as decided by ICANN.
Well, that's interesting. If that's true and I were a citizen of another major industrial nation, I'd be pushing for internationalization of.com, since it's become pretty much the domain associated with business everywhere.
Here's a direct picture link
on
The LEGO Desk
·
· Score: 2
The site is under stress, so if you just want to see a big picture without going thru the intermediate page, here' s a link.
Slashdot Mirror
One concern I have with integrating all of these services is that power failures will be more than just an annoyance. Right now, the telephone central offices have giant batteries that keep landline phone service running even during a power outage. If we start running everything thru optical fibers (or cable tv for that matter), I'm concerned that a power outage will mean that we're totally cut off from emergency services. Maybe not even a power outage: if these services are as unreliable as my cable tv, that ain't so good. Not being able to dial 911 when your neighbors are looting your house, or your garage is on fire might be more than a tad inconvenient ...
Obviously Streambox realized they didn't have a leg to stand on and decided to settle rather than fight.
Not necessarily. Just contemplating the expenses of ongoing litigation may have been enough. They could have been pefectly in their rights, but the prospect of spending hundreds of thousands to prove it, with perhaps not all that much profit to be gained at the end of it all wouldn't be much of an incentive to continue.
I think that in the present litigious environment the only way we're going to get some of these handy items (like a 'VCR' for realaudio and windows streaming media. I tried out a cracked version of Streambox VCR and it's really great) is to quietly develop them out of public view and then release them into the world. Sort of the way Gnutella happened, except that the source would be released as well. Anyone know of an effort to develop a Streambox VCR-like tool?
I think it's become acceptable use to say 'I'm color-blind' instead of 'I have a red-green color defect'. The common usage has shifted to this interpretation. Besides, if I used the latter I'd feel like a pretentious ass and I'm not sure my audience would always know what I'm talking about. People who don't suffer from color-blindiness don't necessarily know that it's (usually) a problem with red and green.
Well, why don't you just suggest that they demand that site visitors must have a particular brand of monitor and video card before being allowed to enter? They can even require that potential visitors mail them receipts showing that they own the necessay items before receiving a password. That way they can pre-qualify the entire user base. Problem solved :-).
Oooh! I just had another thought. They can furnish each potential visitor with a pantone card set and gamma correction software, and insist that they adjust their monitors until they get just the right shading. Yeah, that'll work.
Do you realize that the description you've just given also applies to Hoover Dam? The only distinction is how rapidly the material gets (re)distributed.
Another distinction is the area affected. A dam burst, even one of Hoover's size, would be confined to a relatively small area. A falling beanstalk could potentially hit the entire equatorial region, encompassing hundreds of thousands of square miles and many political jurisdictions.
It seems to be getting harder and harder to erect the large-scale engineering projects, either because of their perceived danger or just the NIMBY syndrome. New dams are fought tooth-and-nail, and you'd probably have more success building a nerve-gas plant than a reactor for nuclear power. A beanstalk would bring together all of these oposition forces.
I've had problems like this before, but usually the client understands when I explain the web isn't like a brochure, where you can mix the inks to get exactly the shade that you want, and have complete control over the layout. It seems to help if you use their own monitor and change the color and resolution settings to show them how there are many variables that the user can mess with, and over which you have no control.
Besides the web-safety limitations of color selections, web designers should also be cognizant of what visitors who are color-blind will see (a subject near and dear to my heart). Webtechniques has a great article on this subject. Particularly interesting is their description of how to simulate color-blindness in order to view your own design efforts.
In a world that loses its collective mind every time a hundred pounds of satellite debris comes down, do you really think anyone is going to be allowed to build a structure that could drop thousands of tons of material across a large swath of the planet if it failed (or the installation went badly)? One doesn't even have to be one of the neo-Luddites to see that maybe this isn't such a great idea, however cool it might sound. By the way, this idea is also known as a "beanstalk" (for obvious reasons), and Analog Science Fiction had a fascinating article some years back on how one might build and install one of these things.
As time goes on, we hear more and more about security flaws in these new wireless personal devices. I think I'm going to devote some serious thought to whether I want to festoon myself with a bunch of linked equipment that contains my personal information, or on which I rely for things like communication, scheduling, directions, etc. I have this nightmare vision where someone manages to hack my body network and all my hardware starts conspiring against me. The modern-day equivalent of that old twilight zone episode where the guy is murdered by his own household devices.
Slashdot posters need to check their links. The working link is here
Disregard the above. It's a troll.
if you are essentially operating as a company, do you
:-)
have to be paid minimum wage if you choose not too?
The answer is no. As an independent who frequently works on fixed-price contracts, I've many times been compensated below minimum (mainly when I've been trying to get a foot in the door with a new client). The trick is, the IRS has some strict tests that you have to pass in order to be considered an independent contractor, and they go out of their way to find that you're actually a quasi-employee. They get lots of back taxes and penalties against your 'employer' that way. Consequently, many employers are gun-shy about trying to have some be an independent contractor.
I mean if you do a bunch of work and get a bunch of free hardware out of it, is that income (or
more to the point, taxable income)?
Are you kidding? The IRS isn't going to let that slip by. Of course, if the company doesn't turn in a 1099 there's no way for the IRS to know. But, you'll run right out and report it, right?
It may not be that big a deal if the online organizations stop giving out freebies to their volunteers. In my experience, these people do it for either love of the subject area or because they can be fascist demi-gods in their own little patch of the universe. Many people who get elected to public office take a large hit to their income for the privilege of serving. I suspect that the same motivations that snag them will also continue to supply volunteers. (Now, the big question becomes: is that enough to placate the bureaucrats? Stay tuned.)
I can see the lawsuits now, with Plaintiffs A, B, and C each separately saying their driver is superior, and asking a court to rule on the quality of computer software. Face it, in the U.S., nothing insulates you from being sued. Oh, you may 'prevail' in the end, but probably at a cost of far more than that of just settling. Tort reform is sorely needed.
One more note: this is a class action suit brought for the volenteers. I smell a team of lawyers in bad suits looking to score easy
money.
Maybe, or maybe not. It just may be a bunch of ex-AOLers who've suffered some perceived wrong by the company and are looking for a little payback. Unfortunately, the U.S. legal system lends itself to vengeance. The Brits have the right idea (one of their few) in having a 'loser pays' system.
Consider packaging the video of a particular event into a single file and making it available on usenet (larger files have to be broken up across multiple messages, of course). The distribution and mirroring will be taken care of for you, and there already exist a number of anonymizing methods.
I'm a CA resident and when the time comes to sell my rather substantial portfolio, I'll be doing it as a Nevada resident. Nothing like not having to pay 9% to the lefties who run the show in Sacramento to make living in the desert palatable. That plus the 'must-issue' concealed-carry gun law there.
How come, when it's time to be 'fair', we never seem to hear the argument that we ought to cut taxes so those who pay 'unfairly', reduce their taxes to the level of those who are paying less than 'their fair share'? Why are tax adjustments only one-way?
Naturally, this is a rhetorical question. Just like when people talk about 'equal pay for equal work' it's never to lower the wages of the higher-paying job to that of the lower. Anyone living in the Tax Hell of California as I do knows just what a crock this whole argument is. Our income tax rate is 9% on the last dollar. Our sales tax gets as high as 8%,depending on the county. We pay property tax, plus the state has enacted fines as great as $271 for traffic violations. Not to mention that CA has attempted in the past to tax even out-of-state residents on portions of their pension income if any of the vesting happened while the person was a CA resident. If a football player plays two games out of 12 in the state, CA wants income tax on 2/12 of their income for that year. This state is so money-hungry it will stop at literally nothing to upend people and shake the last cent out of their pockets. This while running a multibillion dollar budget surplus that it just can't wait to spend. The state budget just passed is up 38%(1) over last year's. Every time some CA politician bitches about how they need more tax revenue I just want to puke.
Would a self-replicating machine be guilty of violating its own copyright? Wonder if it'd get sued ...
My suggestion is to start posting the DeCSS sources and binaries to various newsgroups over and over. Probably best to use an anonymizing service to avoid legal entanglements. I don't think even the MPAA can get a link to a generic newsgroup banned. I.E., "We hear that someone is posting DeCSS to alt.source-code, but check for yourself. Even if they could, someone could just post the newsgroup name itself.
Ah, another carefully reasoned and measured response by an informed slashdot reader. Must be a product of the California school system. Any legal action must be initiated by a plaintiff. In this case, it could be the state Attorney General, or an individual consumer or consumers on behalf of the entire class. Either way, there are named plaintiffs attached to the suit, not "Everyone Who Ever Bought Microsoft Products" vs Microsoft. Thus endeth the lesson, not that you'll likely derive any benefit, as evidenced by your not having learned anything so far in your ignorant existence. Have a lice day.
Great. In six paragraphs they managed to not name the plaintiff.
If Iridium is ultimately rescued, take a close look at the company that does it. I know that U.S. government employees are a large portion of the users, and I would not put it out of the realm of possibility for some secretive governmental agency to keep the thing afloat via a front company.
That is a United States top-level domain suffix, as decided by ICANN.
.com, since it's become pretty much the domain associated with business everywhere.
Well, that's interesting. If that's true and I were a citizen of another major industrial nation, I'd be pushing for internationalization of
The site is under stress, so if you just want to see a big picture without going thru the intermediate page, here' s a link.